MacDougall: Political hysteria won't resolve the gender debates

Couldn’t we, for once, presume good intent on all sides? Even better, could we not play to the excitable crowds on social media, but focus on our children?

Published Feb 08, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a suite of new policies toward transgender rights this week. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick /The Canadian Press

At last, clarity. Now that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has declared his opposition to puberty blockers for children under 18, perhaps we can have a sensible debate about care pathways for children who identify as transgender or non-binary, instead of a partisan screamfest?

Oh, who am I kidding? We’re in line for another hundred rounds of stupid before we settle into a proper debate based on clear positions. But the dividing lines are at least becoming clearer. Instead of each side attacking the other using the weapons of a culture war, we should be able to focus on actual questions of policy.

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Just what is the appropriate age to begin the long-term use of puberty blockers, not to delay so-called “precocious” puberty until it would be (slightly) less embarrassing to do things like grow breasts amongst your peer group, but to delay puberty until your sexual organs can be removed, then reconstructed into their opposite number? How much caution should we apply until longer-term studies of the wholesale removal of critical hormone-producing organs like the ovaries and testes are in? And what role should parents have in these decisions versus teachers and doctors?

These are not easy questions to answer. And there are sensible and defensible positions on both sides of any of these debates. The trick now is to surface the wheat from the ocean of chaff that has grown around transgender policy since it exploded into public focus, fuelled by social media. This will take the encouragement of debate, not shutting it down.

Sadly, the early returns are not good, whether it’s Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault calling Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s new policy on transgender care an “Article 5 moment,” or comments like the prime minister’s that suggest somehow placing limits on access to puberty blockers will nudge youth along a pathway to mental health issues and/or suicide.

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We need to take a breath.

As the recent Cass Review in the United Kingdom highlights, the scientific and medical communities are still short of information on what happens when drugs used to delay puberty are used over a longer haul. We’re equally short on information on the long-term impacts of sexual organ removal, whether in teens or young adults. Nor is it a clearcut task to delineate the origin of any suicidal thoughts within the cohort, who sometimes suffer from other pressures in life and/or unique developmental characteristics. And then there are the pressures of growing up in the unforgiving and predatory hothouse of social media. It shouldn’t be controversial to suggest we proceed with caution and not simply accept whatever a child wants.

And so, while some opposed to the current permissive attitude toward gender-affirming care are undoubtedly bigots, woe be to any politician who presumes they are anything other than a tiny minority. More to the point, any politician whose default position is that parents can’t be trusted to care for their children, or should at least take a backseat to teachers and doctors, is going to be on the wrong side of public opinion and massively so, as progressive leaders like Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon would tell you if she were still in office.

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Yes, some parents are bastards. But the vast majority only want the best for their children. Surely some guardrails can be put in to protect the vulnerable from the bastards without assuming wider parental guilt? More to the point, are you more likely to persuade the bad parents by presuming the guilt of other parents? Or are you, in the long run, more likely to hurt the people you want to help by deciding sensitive issues by fiat?

In other words, could we, for once, presume good intent on all sides? Even better, could we not play for the excitable crowds on social media, where only maximalist positions play well? Now that we know where both major parties are, can we finally let the politics of this issue lie? Can we have an adult conversation about our children?

Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

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